Circuit arrangements for recording a value-balance are used, for example, in coin telephones of the more recent type in order to record the balance in the form of a remaining credit balance which results momentarily from the coin prepayment on the one hand, and the debit according to the measure of the time of conversation on the other hand.
Recordings of a balance are represented by the multitrip tapes of tickets of public transportation which are issued for cash and are devalued according to the amount put on the transportation means, by section, while the number of the still valid sections represents the still available credit balance.
The present invention is based on the realization that it is bothersome in many areas of daily life to make use of the many services and goods of relatively small value, whenever a proper amount of fees--preferably exclusively in certain types of coins--is paid in. This is true, for example, in the large field of automatic vending machines or release for use in the service sector (locker installation, admission through revolving doors to exhibitions or baths). Beyond that it is a bother, for example, in case of sport activities, to have to carry change in order to rent sporting implements or to gain access to a shower or a sauna. Because of the outside temperatures and the special clothing it is particularly bothersome in case of winter sports to have exact change ready for the lift in a valley station. Also transition from one not yet completely used up ticket strip-section to a new ticket strip section in case of public transportation is bothersome, because the new ticket-strip is issued only against payment of a certain sum and the consideration of the residual balance on the old sectional strip-ticket in case of devaluation of the correspondingly decreased number of sections on the new ticket, may lead to errors.